Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
By Wenser (@wenser 2010)
On August 24 this year, the body of a 37-year-old woman was found near the southbound off-ramp of the 15 Interstate Highway at the Fierz Road exit in the Mojave Desert of California, USA. California police later confirmed that the deceased was Hsin-Ju Chuang, a former partner of Hack VC.
Shockingly, on that same day, she had just published a long article accusing Hack VC co-founder Alexander Pack and partner Dmitry Bulaevsky. Hsin-Ju Chuang said that during a crisis of illness and pain, the two threatened her with an “industry ban order,” demanding that she continue working and not resign; she was in so much anguish that at one point she even tried to commit suicide. She also claimed that after that, Hack VC retaliated against her through health insurance channels and spread rumors to smear her.
A murder case on a desert highway led to a scandal involving a well-known venture capital firm with nearly $700 million under management and a former partner’s employment dispute. As of the time of this report, the investigation agency had still not drawn any clear conclusion about the cause of death of Hsin-JuChuang.
Once an industry star partner, now lies dead on the desert highway
Many people may not be familiar with Hsin-Ju Chuang’s professional identity as a “former Hack VC partner,” but her prior track record in the crypto world is quite impressive. Calling her an “industry star partner” would not be an exaggeration.
Hsin-JuChuang’s background: 9 years in the industry; worked at star projects like the Helios Chain and Solana; organized 17 Ethereum conference events
In a long post published by Hsin-Ju Chuang himself when he joined Hack VC as a partner in May 2025, he mentioned that as early as 2017, by sheer coincidence, he joined Helios Chain as the head of growth—a project co-founded by Jed McCaleb, the founder of Mt. Gox, and Lightyear co-founder Brit, focusing on cross-border payments, asset tokenization, DeFi, and real-world financial applications.
In 2018, during Solana’s initial startup stage, she again got to know Solana co-founders such as toly and raj through introductions from Race Capital partner Chris McCann and others, and joined this star project as the head of growth. At the time, Solana’s team had fewer than 10 people, and the project was even still at the whitepaper stage, having just received an investment from 500GlobalVC. Ultimately, Hsin-Ju Chuang stayed until just before Solana’s testnet launch, and left before incentives were unlocked.
After that, she also briefly stayed at Tezos, and later founded her own startup project, Dystopia Labs, focusing on building the developer ecosystem and organizing events. In addition, in 2024, she participated in the fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) infrastructure project Fhenix, and since 2019 she has cumulatively organized 17 Ethereum ecosystem-related conference events around the world.
But no one expected that this “official statement announcing past journeys and a new chapter ahead” would instead open up a brutal and dark “gig worker’s journey.”
Starting at Hack VC was the beginning of a nightmare: starting in 2021 she worked part-time, later going full-time for seven months, and in return she received threats from the firm’s partner of an “industry-wide ban”
After joining Hack VC full-time, Hsin-Ju Chuang began her diligent “working-for-a-living” journey—but reality quickly told her that it was not an easy thing. Compared with the flashy “crypto VC partner” title people see from the outside, Hsin-Ju Chuang’s actual day-to-day work content seems suffocating.
According to what Hsin-Ju Chuang stated in the long exposé article, during last year’s KBW conference, despite her serious health problems, Hack VC co-founder Alexander Pack and partner Dmitry Bulaevsky still demanded that she push forward the hack summit and related events for KBW’s side venue activities. They issued the threat, “If you dare to resign, we’ll issue an industry-wide ban.”
At the time, her daily working hours stretched to 13–14 hours, six days a week, and each night she could manage no more than four hours of sleep. In addition, she was diagnosed with diffuse toxic goiter, hyperthyroidism, and severe insomnia. This seemingly high-paying crypto VC partner was, in reality, a “poor soul working to the bone,” burning her life and health to push the work forward.
After that, Hsin-Ju Chuang repeatedly demanded to resign, but Hack VC refused multiple times. Threats and intimidation aimed at her also continued for nearly a month as events such as KBW went on. In the later stages, her personal health deteriorated for a time; under the torment of illness and pain, Hsin-Ju Chuang even attempted to take her own life.
What’s worse is that even if the suicide attempt ultimately did not happen, and the leadership at Hack VC was informed in writing that they had “no intention to sue, only wanted to leave” (Odaily Planet Daily note: her original wording roughly meant, “As long as Hack VC doesn’t carry out retaliation or smear me afterward, I have no intention to sue”), things obviously were not that simple to wrap up.
As a well-known VC with nearly $700 million in assets under management, Hack VC’s people are clearly not good-natured. Of course, they were not foolish enough to retaliate openly or announce a public ban. Only one month after Hsin-JuChuang’s suicide attempt, Hack VC signaled its attitude of being vengeful over matters by dismissing her concerns over COBRA health insurance issues. (Odaily Planet Daily note: this insurance allows U.S. employees to continue using their employer-provided group health insurance plan if they lose eligibility due to reasons such as leaving the job, reduced working hours, or other specific circumstances—but typically they must pay the full premium themselves.)
Under Hack VC’s delays and stonewalling, it took nearly four months for this insurance issue to remain unresolved. Left with no choice, Hsin-Ju Chuang had to hire a lawyer to force them to comply with the law and fix the COBRA insurance problem. However, during the legal back-and-forth, and tempted by potential large benefits such as attached incentive/equity bonuses and clawback provisions, Hack VC continued to defame her through lawyers and rumors spread by other employees/partners.
Worth noting is that Hsin-JuChuang’s compensation at Hack VC was not bad. Since 2021, she had been working as a part-time employee at Hack VC, achieving a pay increase from $50,000 to $300,000, receiving a $30,000 bonus, and being promised additional incentive bonus/equity-related bonus (originally scheduled to vest about a week after she left). In addition, she was also promised a potential path to join the ranks of the GP management team, but due to health issues, no definite update was ultimately given.
From reading the long exposé article from start to finish, Hsin-Ju Chuang’s despair is almost palpable. Perhaps this is also why, nearly a year after the alleged suicide incident—when the parties’ lawyers had originally prepared to move into private mediation and settlement—she ultimately chose to reject a settlement with confidentiality terms, fire the lawyers, and plan to release evidence related to the case on August 26 (or earlier). On August 24, when she published the long exposé, she even included two donation wallet addresses to solicit help.
Unfortunately, the long exposé’s last update time remained at 1:00 a.m. on August 24. That same evening, she had already died on a desert highway in California, United States.
The mystery behind Hsin-JuChuang’s cause of death: no autopsy results yet—suicide to make her intentions known, or murder for hire?
On September 6, the news website hoodline published a story titled “A 37-year-old woman from Las Vegas was found dead on an interstate highway in some state/province.” The deceased in that incident was, in fact, the former Hack VC partner Hsin-Ju Chuang, who had originally planned to reveal evidence.
The case is currently being investigated by the California Highway Patrol’s Barstow Division. According to weather data accessed by the media, on the day Hsin-Ju Chuang’s body was found, the temperature in the Mojave Desert was as high as about 42°C, and nighttime temperatures remained around 27°C. It is still unclear whether her death was caused by the extreme heat, a sudden illness, mechanical failure, or other factors.
In addition, although several weeks have passed, there is still no specific update on the autopsy results. The San Bernardino County coroner’s office said that death investigations requiring toxicology and histology testing typically take an average of six months to one year to complete.
Regarding the accident scene, according to the California Highway Patrol, the Barstow Division of the California Highway Patrol patrols State Route 15, covering a stretch of roughly 130 miles between Apple Valley and the Nevada state line. This area is large and sparsely populated; cases in remote areas along the route often take some time before the public becomes aware of them.
Based on the available information, there is still no evidence indicating whether this was a suicide or a murder. However, the coincidental timing, the puzzling desert highway, and the “workplace scandal” involving Hack VC in the past still cast a mysterious and blood-chilling shadow over this case.
Worth mentioning is that, as one of the industry’s well-known VC firms, Hack VC’s portfolio includes plenty of star-level projects, such as EigenLayer, Goldfinch, Mysten Labs (Sui), io.net, Elixir, Berachain, Stable, and more.
And this bizarre incident—“a former partner being found dead in a remote desert highway before she could publicly provide evidence”—undoubtedly added countless doubts and scrutiny to this VC firm. As for how Hack VC co-founder Alexander Pack and partner Dmitry Bulaevsky, who were pushed into the spotlight, responded afterward—whether they would issue a response or be investigated by the police—at present we still do not know.
As of the time of writing, Hack VC’s official account had not issued any direct response to the matter, and Odaily Planet Daily would continue to track the latest developments.